from IPython.display import Image
In previous talks I've presented a mental model, packets, platform and process to help you think about the web.
I had planned provide a set of complicated set of worked examples that you might use, but the more I spent researching for this talk, the more I found myself realising a few things.
Provisioning¶
Understand how provisioning has an impact
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☁️¶
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The power of wireless cloud 2013 (CEET - http://www.ceet.unimelb.edu.au/publications)
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Data centre use isn't growing as fast we first thought¶
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This chart is from a report in 2016 from the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, all about the energy used by the cloud.
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Provider¶
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Hard to measure¶
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Assuming that the reduction in energy efficiency can be fitted to an exponentially decreasing curve (i.e. because it is more and more difficult to achieve the same reductions), then the data points can be extrapolated to give energy intensity factors for 2015 of 0.15 for fixed line networks, and 6.5 for mobile networks, with both factors measured in kWh/GB (kilowatt-hours per gigabyte). - GHG Protocol Guidance for ICT
45x difference between wired and wireless¶
Coroama and Hilty review 10 studies that have attempted to estimate the average energy intensity of the internet where estimates varied from 0.0064 kWh/GB to 136 kWh/GB, a difference factor of more than 20,000. - GHG Protocol Guidance for ICT
20000x between highest and lowest¶
What this means for calculations¶
Did I drive across from here to the airport?¶
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these energy intensity factors (which include end- user devices) can be excluded, this then leaves a difference of 300 times between the highest and the lowest factors. - GHG Protocol Guidance for ICT¶
300x between highest and lowest¶
Did fly from London to Madrid?¶
Distance from London to Madrid = 1264 kilometers¶
Worked Example - USA Today¶
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Image("https://mrchrisadamsblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/screen-shot-2018-05-27-at-16-56-42.png")
0.06 kWh/GB for 2015¶
we were able to determine that the electricity intensity of data transmission (core and fixed-line access networks) has decreased by half approximately every 2 years since 2000 (for developed countries
0.03 kWh/GB for 2017¶
248.5kg of CO2 per day, or a little under 7.5 tonnes per month¶
Is that a lot?¶
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Here's the full worked example. You can plug your own figures in to do similar calculations.
Will it stay like that?¶
What if energy gets cleaner?¶
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UK emissions¶
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This diagram is from a fantastic article in the Carbon Brief about the fall in the UK's emissions since 1990. The UK has been leading here in Europe, and it's worth a read.
US grid is getting cleaner too¶
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You can more here on the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) website.
The US emissions have really fallen in the last few years, largely down to phasing out coal. Here in the EU, in Jan 2019 half the coal fired power stations are losing money now, gas and renewables are increasingly cheaper than coal.
It's increasingly difficult to make an environmental argument against sending stuff over the wire¶
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There's another reason why where I thought packets was a key area to focus on, that's less of an environmental issue.
It's just too hard to sell, and as new countries come online and use the internet more, they use it in different ways. Look at these data plans with India. A two gigabyte 4G plan, costs 190 Rupees, which is between 2 and 3 euros or dollars.
It's going to be very hard to tell people to not use connectivity for environmental reasons, and they should be caring about data when to them, it's seems so plentiful.
Where is all that usage coming from?¶
import altair as alt
import pandas as pd
# the data is here
# https://www.sandvine.com/hubfs/downloads/phenomena/2018-phenomena-report.pdf
data = [
{"name":"NETFLIX", "percent": 14.97},
{"name": "HTTP MEDIA STREAM", "percent": 13.07},
{"name": "YOUTUBE", "percent": 11.35},
{"name": "RAW MPEG-TS", "percent": 4.39},
{"name": "HTTP (TLS)", "percent": 4.06},
{"name": "QUIC", "percent": 3.87},
{"name": "AMAZON PRIME", "percent": 3.69},
{"name": "HTTP DOWNLOAD", "percent": 3.69},
{"name": "HTTP", "percent": 3.22},
{"name": "PLAYSTATION DOWNLOAD", "percent": 2.67}
]
bandwidth = pd.DataFrame(data)
bandwidth
alt.Chart(bandwidth).mark_bar().encode(
alt.Y(field="name", type="nominal", sort=alt.EncodingSortField(field='percent', op='mean')),
x="percent",
color="name"
)
It's also worth looking at what it's being used for. The web as we know it, makes up less and less of the bandwidth we use - this chart is based on Sandvine's 2018 Internet Phenomenons report, and shows the same direction of travel the last few years..
You should still care about what you send over wire.¶
Time Is Money: The Business Value of Web Performance, by Tammy Evert¶
perf-tooling.today¶
Do it because it makes products better, and it's the right thing to do. I'd hazard that it'll be very difficult to argue for environmental reasons if you're challenged for actual numbers when someone doesn't want to do something, for the reasons I've outlined above.
B-corp have tools to self assess now BIA¶
Also, ICTfootprint.eu have their own free self assessment tool for IT too¶
Wholegrain digital also shared their own spreadsheet for working out their numbers, for anyone to use.¶
I'm assuming that the people viewing this might skew towards some smaller companies. So, let's look a what a good looks like for us. Carbon good-egg SME, Whole Grean Digital are a one I can point to, with recent stats, and one I've spoken to, so I feel fairly confident about the assumptions I'm making here when I talk about them.
Everyone works from home, and they don't fly to conferences all around the world, and they use green power for as much of their online operations as possible. They also write about this too.
Even with this, they're coming in at around 10 tonnes of emissions for a company of maybe 15 people, so 700kg per member of staff per year.
Conferences¶
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And ths brings us to an important point, and why I'm a fan of SustainableUX.
If you've flown to a conference or meeting for work in the last 12 months, the chances are you've already emitted more emissions on a per employee basis, than them with your single round trip flight.
This seemed an uncomfortable figure, so I tried putting them into a calculator provided by where I feel the assumptions aren't too out there, and here's what I got.
For a 100 people conference over 1 day, with all things being equal, we're looking at 83 tonnes of CO2. So 8 Wholegrain Digital's worth of emissions. Is flying to a conf for the hallway track, really the best, and only way to get a genuine connection with people?
There's some intereeting info
Where else?¶
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With this in mind, we really need to getting off fossil fuels. There is currently no easy way to check without just asking your company if you're propping up the industry already. Bigger players like, BlackRock, Vanguard, Axa and other investors have ramped up coal holdings since the Paris agreement.
It gets worse if you have investments in this area you a pension or savings, you're exposed to a collosal amount of risk.
In the words of Jermet Leggett the CEO of Solar energy, $25 trillion in past infrastructure investment is at risk if governments do what they say they will. And this is not just one of two companies.
We're talking about companies making a quarter of the trackers funds that are very, very common investment vehicles.
But it's possible to switch.
In the UK companies like Pension Bee are making it much easier, but there are many others. In the EU
Why the focus on energy and fossil fuels?¶
Looking outside of the web industry¶
I'm hoping there's a detectable theme in this talk, around getting off fossil fuels.
This comes from the One Earth Climate Model, a combination of work between University of Technology Sydney (UTS), two institutes at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the University of Melbourne’s Climate & Energy College, and funded by er, the Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation. The press release came out today.
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Keeping it in the ground¶
Sorting out the internet is the easy bit.
Sure, I think we can have some impact in our industries, but I think the main thing we can do is normalise the idea that: of course energy comes from renewables now, it's the 21st century!
of course energy comes from renewables now, it's the 21st century!¶
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The amount of electricity that will be needed to make the hydrogen and run electric arc furnaces will be enormous. Over the border in Austria, local steelmaker Voestalpine suggests that conversion to hydrogen at its main plant will need about 30 terawatt hours a year, or about 50% of today’s total Austrian use.
This quote comes from the Carbon commentary a weekly newsletter. I highly recommend it. full quote:
Currently, steelmaking contributes about 40m tonnes of CO2 a year, about a third of total emissions from German industry. Hydrogen will be burnt to create pig iron which will then be remelted in electric arc furnaces. At the moment, hydrogen use is vastly more expensive than coal but German manufacturers are under pressure to show how they will move away from fossil fuel.
Thyssen Krupp, also one of the leaders in the reuse of CO2, estimates the transition to hydrogen will cost over €30bn. The amount of electricity that will be needed to make the hydrogen and run electric arc furnaces will be enormous. Over the border in Austria, local steelmaker Voestalpine suggests that conversion to hydrogen at its main plant will need about 30 terawatt hours a year, or about 50% of today’s total Austrian use.
What about travel?¶
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This slide is from the fantastic Electric Dreams report from Fellow Travellers, it shows for the UK, what impact electric (as in potentially zero carbon) aviation could have on emissions.
What you see is that for short distances it's possible to do electric planes, but put simply, we bump up against physics - liquid fuels store so much more energy for their weight than batteries do, so past a given range, you can't use them.
The good news is that if you have access to cheap renewable energy, you can create synthetic fuel by using well known, if energy intensive sources to do so. The economics are not great right now, so flying will likely be expensive, but not impossible, but they are improving. There's more shockingly nerdy detail in this piece here.
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So what should I do?¶
Above all else, focus on green power - it needs to be the norm, and right now it's not.¶
"Every new service we use will run on renewable power"¶
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Why?¶
This is from a fantastic post by Auke Hoekstra explaining the disconnect between reality and the common industry projections.
We need some kind of easy to understand rallying call
#makethewebgreen ?¶
Help make the web green with me¶
We're opening up green web foundation code and data, more info on how sites are powered, etc.¶
Find the org on github¶
Join the mailing list¶
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The prototype fund's new funding found explicitly is focussed on climate change. Here is your change. Apply!
Thanks!¶
- Chris adams
- email: chris@productscience.net
- twitter: @mrchrisadams
- slack: climateAction.tech
- Green Web Foundation Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/gg6vOj